Is anyone jaded by new camera releases?

Cameras are like PCs in the 90's. Wow -- did you see the clock speed of that new AT PC? And it can have 512 KB of ram! And a 100 MB hard drive! The the bus speed is xxx mbps! It has a 56k built-in dial-up modem! I'm ditching my XT!

Now? Meh. Whatever. What's on sale will do... great deals on last year's model.

PC tech has matured. So have cameras. Nobody cares.
 
ptpdprinter said:
Not jaded, just not overawed. It seems the camera bodies are still playing catch-up to Sony, though I can see the attraction if you are already a Canon or Nikon owner. Tribalism is strong.
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This.

Digital camera technology has matured, as happened with personal computers and, later, mobile phones. A decade ago, 2 years passing - a typical camera generation - meant a huge leap in camera performance and features; today, 2 years results in evolutionary not revolutionary advances.

I bought my first digital camera in 2000, a Fuji 2700. It had 2 MP and created only JPG files, yet a review described it as “Resolution is extremely high ... probably the ultimate portable digicam”. Three years later I bought a Canon 10D, a sophisticated 6 MP digital SLR with quality and features that rivalled 35mm film (the Fuji wasn’t even close), and can hold its own today if you’re not making massive prints (unlike the Fuji, which is far surpassed by even the cheapest phone).

As a digital camera user, it was necessary to upgrade regularly. If you didn’t, you were at a disadvantage - and it showed, either in print quality or significantly inferior or missing camera features (my Canon 10D was awful above ISO 400).

Things are different today. I no longer feel compelled to upgrade my camera regularly to the latest technology. I bought my last new camera in 2012, a Nikon D800E, and replaced it this spring - 6 years later - with a Sony A7R II. A 6 year interval. Note that despite the long interval between cameras, I didn’t buy the latest A7R III model. There is no noticeable difference in image quality between my Nikon and the latest cameras.

The reason I upgrade now is not because of better features or image quality but for changes in preference. For example, I bought the Sony because I wanted an electronic viewfinder and in-camera image stabilisation.

I cannot ever see myself buying another digital camera because of improvements in image quality or features, simply because these no longer occur to any worthwhile extent.

I think digital cameras are now in the same place that film cameras were in the 1980s, where the existing technology cannot be improved significantly, only replaced by something new - my guess would be the demise of still photography in its entirety, being replaced by video and virtual reality.

Presumably camera manufacturers have a new game plan, because people no longer buy an expensive new camera every couple of years. I’d like to know what this plan is...

My first digital camera, below. The technology is obsolete, and even the language: when did you last hear the word “digicam”? Most people once again simply use “camera”, since “film camera” is unlikely to be meant today.

211_MX-2700.jpg
 
@RichC - you're so right about the march of progress and the slowing of technological advancement. My first digital camera (digicam, haha) was the Canon S45, a 4mp silver brick which I thought was pretty darn good. It actually was good, and with careful exposure and shooting raw can produce some decent images, but less money will buy a Ricoh GR these days. I have a Canon 30D which still takes decent pictures and a 5D Mark II which I occasionally break out if a client wants good images. Funnily, as the years have gone by, my Lightroom and compositions skills have improved, so I'm able to take much better images now than I could when I first got them.

I've got more gear than I really need, which is part of the 'meh' feeling I get about new gear announcements. Even the M10 didn't get me very excited because I'm still happy with my M9, eight years on.
 
Not Jaded

I’m not jaded, my appetite's not faded
Bring on the new toys, the shiny objects
The things that are supposed to turn us on
They won’t compare to what we’ve loved
Not today, not tomorrow, give it ten or fifteen
Then we’ll see

Jaded’s for the other guys, the wise guys
The camera snobs of yesteryear
The camera gear boys that swear by the big “L”
That tell everyone else to go to hell
Who swear that sharp ain’t sharp
Unless they say it is so

Lou Reed wasn’t Jaded, he was a rock ‘n’ roll...
Animal
He wasn’t afraid to experiment, to try new things
Like Bowie, he had a new kind of song to sing
Changes, Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes that’s what David said
Bring on the new cameras, new blood to be bled
That’s what he said, that’s what he said

Just having fun with words,
Mike
 
NickTrop said:
Cameras are like PCs in the 90's. Wow -- did you see the clock speed of that new AT PC? And it can have 512 KB of ram! And a 100 MB hard drive! The the bus speed is xxx mbps! It has a 56k built-in dial-up modem! I'm ditching my XT!

Now? Meh. Whatever. What's on sale will do... great deals on last year's model.

PC tech has matured. So have cameras. Nobody cares.
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I agree completely Nick... this is how I feel.
 
I was thinking more about it.

If I like street photography in galleries and museums on darkroom prints and if I'm still trying to pursue it on my own, then photakina is lingerie sale event and I'm cowboy. They might have odd booth with boots, but most likely they are going to be kinky.
 
Ko.Fe. said:
I was thinking more about it.

If I like street photography in galleries and museums on darkroom prints and if I'm still trying to pursue it on my own, then photakina is lingerie sale event and I'm cowboy. They might have odd booth with boots, but most likely they are going to be kinky.
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Haha, very eloquent...
 
I am almost completely jaded by and uninterested in most of the recently new camera announcements. I was in a well stocked camera shop last week with the full lines of Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Olympus and I found nothing of any interest.

With regard to increased resolution, I have beautiful 16″ by 20″ prints on my wall that I made with my 6MP Nikon D40. I don't need to print bigger than that, and my MacBook Air struggles with images files bigger than about 12MP anyway.

More importantly, I find I don't care for the look of the images from most of the newer super high dynamic range cameras. The images look overprocessed and have a sort of harshness (for lack of a better word) that I find unattractive. Maybe it's the way a lot of the users of these cameras process their images to show off the tremendous dynamic range of the sensors rather than make an attractive photograph, but I am noticing this very consistently. If I see an image on Flickr that has this look and I check the EXIF it is almost always from a Sony A7 series camera. (iPhone X photos have the same unpleasant look to my eyes.)

I'm also not excited by more features. In fact the only new cameras I find particularly appealing are the Leica M-10 and M-10P that have significantly _fewer_ features than their predecessors. And from what I've seen, files from these cameras do not have the "overprocessed" look that I dislike.

Now if the camera manufactures would produce new /updated versions of the CLE, FE, FM3A, OM-1n, 35RC, XA, K1000, KX, or GR1, then I might be excited.
 
My GAS is cured. Nothing new will improve my photography.

Mirrorless makes me dizzy and I really do not see the advantage.

My Leica M`s are mirrorless already. Leica picture quality is always better when I compare with my Nikons. Leicas have tone separation the Nikons do not give and that can not be fixed with photoshop.
 
The race to the top will have some casualties and more than a few detractors, apparently.
Anyway, where's my contax t3 sized, curved aps-c sensored, fixed focal e-35mm lens camera?! Technologically doable today but nada, zilch, not happening! lol
 
Phones and cameras has been boring for a many years now. We don’t need new cameras but sony, nikon and the other brands need to trick us to belive that we do. I mean, some of the best photos ever taken are shot with old bad film, no lightmeter and bad lenses. And for the videographers, the movies that people have been making for the last years with dslrs are so good! The quality is better than a lot of old classic movies. We don’t need 4k, 8k, 16k and so on. But we think we do. We are no longer creators, we are technicians. We produce a lot of pictures and videos, but all look the same and 99% is crap. Not because people are bad photographers or videographers, it’s because people love the harware more than creating. I think that more than 50% of photographers today are not in to photography, they are in to cameras.
 
Landberg said:
Not because people are bad photographers or videographers, it’s because people love the harware more than creating. I think that more than 50% of photographers today are not in to photography, they are in to cameras.
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And film photographers never upgraded their film cameras? Yet the film itself remained largely the same, so how were images any better? Who needs a built-in meter? Who needs an automatic diaphragm? Who needs auto exposure? Who needs auto focus? Who needs plastic fantastic? Yet someone bought all of the above. It kept the film camera industry alive for fifty years. But perhaps you would be satisfied with film cameras as they existed in the 1950s. Some people are.
 
How about the camera phone release cycle and how each time a new one comes out the death of traditional cameras is imminent? I`d rather hear about the latest me too mirrorless than the latest phone with 5 cameras and software that slaps 16 images together to make something usable.
 
Many years ago and I mean many years ago, I was in the process of buying a VW Beetle. My brother said that for not much more money, I could get a Ford Mustang. Faster, better handling, etc. My response was no because with all the features that Mustang has (speed), I would probably just wrap it around a tree, so I stuck with the Beetle. Nuff said.
 
Yep - got me a used X-E2 a couple of years ago, using an X-E1 as back up. I haven't felt any GAS since then and can´t see any reason to upgrade until one of them gives in. As several of you have remarked: The market has matured.


Same goes for phones; I am using a Huawei Y625 that I bought for £50 more than a year ago. As I don't use my phone for games, there is no need to upgrade until it falls apart.


Kind of nice being able to focus on what I am doing, rather than on the tool :D
 
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